Hillary's Lapdogs Bark at Obama

Boy, it's getting nasty and there's still nearly a year before the Iowa caucus. David Geffen, Hollywood mogul and big money supporter of Barack Obama's Hollywood fete' last night had a few choice things to say about Hillary Clinton, as reported in Maureen Dowd's column. Hillary's lapdog Howard Wolfson issued a foolish statement and pretty much got slapped down in response:

NEW YORK Maureen Dowd's column in The New York Times today, in which she quoted former Bill Clinton supporter David Geffen offering a few caustic comments, has incited a strong Hillary Clinton campaign attack on Geffen -- and the candidate he now favors, Sen. Barack Obama.

Then Obama's team fired back.

"Everybody in politics lies, but they [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling,” Geffen had said.

Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson released the following statement this morning: "While Senator Obama was denouncing slash and burn politics yesterday, his campaign's finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Senator Clinton and her husband.

"If Senator Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money.

"While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Senator Obama's principal fundraiser."

Obama's team responded a few hours later. Communications director Robert Gibbs just released the following statement:

“We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom. It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because he's black."

Right back at ya, Hill. Playing the victim against Obama ain't gonna work.

Dowd had some other gems from Geffen:

Among other things, Hollywood and music mogul Geffen had told Dowd, "God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton?" and "Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I’m tired of hearing James Carville on television.”

More from Dowd:

-- "I don’t think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person,” Mr. Geffen says, adding that if Republicans are digging up dirt, they’ll wait until Hillary’s the nominee to use it. “I think they believe she’s the easiest to defeat.”

-- She is overproduced and overscripted. “It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t,” Mr. Geffen says. “She’s so advised by so many smart advisers who are covering every base. I think that America was better served when the candidates were chosen in smoke-filled rooms.”

-- Once, David Geffen and Bill Clinton were tight as ticks. Mr. Geffen helped raise some $18 million for Bill and slept in the Lincoln Bedroom twice. Bill chilled at Chateau Geffen. Now, the Dreamworks co-chairman calls the former president “a reckless guy” who “gave his enemies a lot of ammunition to hurt him and to distract the country.”

-- They fell out in 2000, when Mr. Clinton gave a pardon to Marc Rich after rebuffing Mr. Geffen’s request for one for Leonard Peltier. “Marc Rich getting pardoned? An oil-profiteer expatriate who left the country rather than pay taxes or face justice?” Mr. Geffen says. “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

In case you don't recall the name Leonard Peltier, he was a former heap big chief in the American Indian Movement and was sent to prison for his role in the deaths of two FBI agents. Hollywood types love cop killers like Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal, so you can almost understand Geffen's heartache that somone from "Big Oil" would get a pardon while Tonto didn't.

All Paltier had to do was send big bucks to the Clinton campaign and he'd be walking free today. Unfortunately for him, he was imprisoned before casinos were legalized on the reservation, otherwise he would have had the wampum for a big bribe.